SLPS finance onboarding: fund balance strong but budget shows projected drawdown; board completes budgeting exercise

Kimberly Johnson Miller, chief financial officer for Saint Louis Public Schools, led a finance onboarding presentation and a hands-on budgeting exercise that illustrated trade-offs the district faces as it builds the FY26 budget.

The session matters because Miller presented district financial figures and constraints that will shape the upcoming budget: the district reported ending FY23–24 with a general fund balance of $231,000,000 and projected an FY24–25 unrestricted fund balance of about $197,000,000, equal to roughly 45.43% of the operating budget. Miller cautioned that while the district remains above the state-required reserve level, projected spending and revenue uncertainty mean the district expects to draw down fund balance as it builds a balanced FY26 budget.

Miller opened the session with a community-engagement recap and an interactive exercise that gave participants a hypothetical $1,000 to allocate across five budget categories: salaries, benefits, purchased services, supplies and materials, and capital outlay. During the simulation organizers introduced an emergency scenario: a school boiler failure that would cost the hypothetical budget $600. Participants chose between reducing planned category allocations or using fund balance. The exercise was explicitly hypothetical; dollar figures in the exercise are proportional tokens, not actual repair quotes.

Miller described baseline budget structure and recent financial results: year-to-date district revenue was presented at about $310,000,000 of a total $442,000,000 budget (approximately 70.2%), and expenditures year to date were about $323,000,000 (roughly 56.2%). The presentation listed major revenue sources as local property and sales taxes and noted federal grants contribute materially to the general fund — a figure of about $48,700,000 in federal grant impact was given. Title programs and IDEA were listed among federal contributors; food and nutrition and transportation were named as top federal-related program expenditures. Miller summarized: "We ended 2324 at $231,000,000. That is what our fund balance was for 23 20 fourth year. We are still above the state requirement of 3%. We are projecting that our FY '20 '4 '20 '5 fund balance is at 197,000,000 and around 45.43 percent." (quote as spoken.)

Board members used the exercise to illustrate priorities. President Doctor Karen Collins Adams said she would "leave the salaries intact because our employees are ... valuable," and proposed covering an emergency by reducing purchased services and using part of the fund balance. Superintendent Millicent Poreshadeh, describing a version of the exercise she had run with stakeholders, said she "did not touch the fund balance" in her allocation because one known heater failure suggested the district should preserve reserves for unknown additional emergencies.

Presenters flagged specific fiscal risks and planning drivers: salary and benefits comprise the largest portion of expenditures (commonly cited at 70–80%), benefits and medical costs are rising, state revenue reductions were anticipated (a $5,000,000 decrease was mentioned), and pending federal/state policy changes (including proposed legislation about open enrollment and vouchers) create uncertainty. The presentation also referenced voter-approved Prop S bond proceeds (the community-approved general obligation bond package from August 2022) and noted that Prop S projects are in progress; board members asked staff to provide Prop S expenditure reports on request.

No formal budget adoption occurred at the meeting; the session was described as onboarding and planning ahead of the FY26 proposed budget presentation. Staff told the board the fiscal year begins July 1 and runs through June 30; Miller said staff would provide further financial detail and requested scenarios to inform the FY26 proposal.